The Week That Was

The Dementia Care Conference was great. A little overwhelming, but great. I've worked with three people for the last eight or nine months -- Dr. Scott Roberts from the University of Michigan, Michelle Barclay with the Alzheimer's Association in Los Angeles, CA and Kristy Klein with the National Alzheimer's Office in Chicago. It was nice to finally meet Scott and Michelle and to see Kristy again. They were all wonderful to work with and helped me along in the process.

Although the conference was geared to professionals in the field of Dementia Care I learned more than I thought I would. A lot of emphasis was given to early stage dementia and those attended seemed to want to know more. It's just a baby step in this disease.

But it was exhausting. It has taken me a couple of days to feel my feet under me again. The day I came home from Atlanta it was pouring down rain and the fog was awful. It took me two and half hours to get home (normally it takes one and half hours) and I was white knuckle driving the whole time. When I got home I felt wasted. I was tired and pretty non-communicative to my husband. Yesterday wasn't much better -- I felt like I was in a comatose state most of the day. Needless to say these last two days have not been "good days" for me.

I stayed in Atlanta for three nights. The conference was at the Westin and it was so nice that when I was feeling tired I could go up to my hotel room and retreat to the quietness of it. Coming home on Wednesday I actually felt annoyed that there was someone else in the house (my husband) and he was invading my "silence time". It was so hard to come home to "noise". I got to the point where I was feeling mad at my husband and it wasn't his fault. Those of you that know my husband know how quiet it is. It was just that I had gotten used to the sereneness of my room and no distractions. When I got home the noise of the television, the sound of my husband's voice and even the meow of my cats was getting on my nerves and making me very agitated. I finally had to seek some quiet time in another part of the house, and then rested as well. This seems like such a silly thing, but it is so upsetting to me. I'm getting used to the noise around the house again. I'm glad I don't have a lot of kids around or dogs barking all the time!

Well, I have rambled on enough for now. More soon.